St. Louis County police using software to predict crimes

JENNINGS, Mo. (AP) — St. Louis County authorities have begun experimenting with software to predict where crimes may happen.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that two St. Louis County police vehicles are equipped with computers with software that predicts where crime is likely to happen based on mathematical algorithms.

St. Louis County Sgt. Colby Dolly, who oversees the recently created crime analysis unit, says the software is “refining,” not replacing, hot-spot policing. Hot-spot policing has been around for more than 20 years and forms patrol plans based on crime trends.

Dolly says the county paid $45,000 for the contract with HunchLab for the software. The county is expected to pay about $35,000 for every subsequent year.

The system bases its prediction on multiple variables, including weather conditions, public transportation routes, vacant properties, foreclosures, parks, libraries and housing density. HunchLab product manager Jeremy Heffner says the one variable that is not used is race.

“We don’t use race because we feel that it would distract from the end goal, which is to prevent crime,” he said. “This isn’t about profiling individuals, this is identifying the places where people are the most likely to become victims of crime.”

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar says this form of what is known as predictive policing is the future for law enforcement.

“I don’t see this going away,” Belmar said. “Five years from now, I hope that we are wondering what we would do without this.

Dolly says that some officers did express doubt in their initial training sessions that the system could tell them something about their beats that they didn’t already know.

Officer Trevor Voss, one of the officers already using the system, says a predicted gun crimes area in Jennings did not surprise him but a separate area identified for a high probability of car break-ins did.